What will no longer serve marketing in 2026

The year 2025 didn’t deliver a dramatic collapse or a single defining disruption. Instead, it exposed an uncomfortable truth. Visibility stopped guaranteeing value. And scale, once the ultimate growth lever, began to look wasteful when it wasn’t anchored in relevance, empathy, or trust. 

On the other hand, audiences also grew more discerning and attention more fragmented. All of this had Indian marketers question some of its most celebrated habits unquestioned for years: chasing trends for relevance, mistaking metrics for meaning, and treating brand-building and performance as separate pursuits. 

As the industry steps into 2026, the conversation is not just about what’s next, but also about what’s not coming along. Marketing leaders are consciously leaving behind habits that once defined success but now dilute it. At the very top of the funnel, marketers began questioning one assumption more than any other: does visibility still equal value?

When visibility stopped being the goal

One of the most significant habits the industry aims to unlearn is the equation of visibility with value. The assumption that louder brands automatically win is starting to crack under the weight of consumer fatigue.

Abhishek Shetty, Head of Marketing, Swiggy Instamart, said, “If I look at 2025 from a consumer’s point of view, the biggest habit marketing needs to unlearn is confusing visibility with value.” With attention fragmented across platforms and formats, reach alone no longer translated into recall or trust. What stayed with consumers were brands that showed up meaningfully, solving real problems with speed and empathy.

Reflecting on his own unlearning, Shetty added, “Personally, the habit I am leaving behind is chasing scale for its own sake.” In its place is a focus on fewer, better ideas, work that feels intuitive and human rather than over-engineered.

This shift away from noise also resonated with Binda Dey, Group CMO, Knight Riders Sports, who observed that the rush to be everywhere often diluted brand distinctiveness. “In 2025, I think the industry needs to unlearn its instinct to jump on every trend or meme just to appear relevant.” Being early on a platform or format, she noted, means little if the brand has nothing authentic to say.

This rethink of visibility also played out in how marketers evaluated influence and scale. Rahul Dayama, Founding Partner, Urbanic, pointed to the industry’s long-standing obsession with follower counts as a habit that finally began to unravel in 2025. “Scale without substance doesn’t build brands,” he said, noting that recognition, recall, and trust matter far more than raw numbers. When content genuinely connects, growth follows naturally, becoming a by-product rather than the objective itself.

As marketers rethought what visibility meant, the next question became how to show up meaningfully, not just to be noticed, but to engage with context and care.

From persuasion to participation

The most successful marketing is less about pushing messages and more about listening, responding, and engaging thoughtfully.

For M V S Murthy, Chief Marketing Officer at Federal Bank, 2025 marked a deeper philosophical shift in how brands show up, particularly in services-led categories. Marketing, he observed, was moving decisively away from persuasion toward presence.

“Marketing, for me, became even less about persuasion and far more about participation, about being present, listening actively, and responding with context and care.” As technology became invisible and operational efficiency improved, the gaps that remained were human ones, tone, reassurance, and empathy.

Dayama echoes this shift, but flags a persistent mindset that continues to limit its impact: the assumption that brands already understand their consumers. “That belief often becomes the biggest blind spot,” he explained. For him, strong marketing today begins with listening, not broadcasting, evolving communication based on what people are actually saying, rather than repeatedly pushing product-led messages.

Participation alone wasn’t enough; marketers now had to ask whether their ideas were grounded in real human behaviour and culture, not borrowed for momentary attention.

Moving beyond borrowed culture and performative relevance

In 2025, marketers realised that surface-level trends and formats were no longer enough. Consumers increasingly expect campaigns to feel authentic and rooted in real behaviour.

Shetty points to this directly, saying, “Another habit to unlearn is building campaigns before building consumer truth.” In a landscape where consumers can instantly sense inauthenticity, marketing that isn’t rooted in real behaviour is quickly ignored. Cultural participation, he argues, has to be earned, not engineered.

Dey reframes innovation itself. “Innovation, for me, isn’t about speed; it’s about relevance, and whether an idea actually moves the brand story forward instead of simply borrowing attention from culture.” In an overcrowded content ecosystem, performative relevance no longer sustains memory or belief.

Culture is no longer a shortcut. It’s a responsibility.

When internal divides weaken impact

2025 also blurred long-standing divides within marketing itself. The artificial separation between brand and performance, storytelling and conversion, began to feel increasingly outdated.

Articulating this, Shetty pointed at the “artificial split between brand and performance.” He said, “Consumers do not experience marketing in silos. Every touchpoint shapes brand memory and drives action at the same time.” 

He explained that treating these as separate disciplines leads to disjointed experiences and weaker impact.

Alongside this, Dey points to another habit losing relevance, the obsession with vanity metrics. “Personally, I’m choosing to leave behind vanity metrics as a measure of success.” In her view, likes and views may signal visibility, but they don’t indicate belief. What matters instead is whether communication builds real emotional connection and long-term brand value.

As marketing matured in 2025, success was no longer measured by dashboards alone, but by depth of impact.

What replaces the old playbook

The old playbook, focused on scale, noise, and spectacle, is giving way to approaches grounded in trust, relevance, and care.

Capturing this transition, Shetty said, “What lies ahead is marketing that behaves more like a service than a spectacle.” Brands that win will respect consumers’ time, show up usefully in everyday moments, and earn trust through consistency rather than campaigns alone.

Dey framed the shift at an industry level, “The biggest shift shaping the future of marketing is a move away from noise and novelty toward meaning and intent.” As audiences become more discerning, brands will be remembered less for how loudly they spoke, and more for what they stood for.

Murthy extends this thinking into the future, especially in the Indian context, where scale brings heightened responsibility. “Customers and citizens increasingly expect organisations to combine efficiency with empathy, and consistency with conscience.” Growth, he believes, must now be matched with care.

For marketing leaders, the path ahead is about embedding empathy, relevance, and care into every touchpoint, designing experiences that resonate rather than just register. If 2025 was about questioning old assumptions, 2026 is about acting on those lessons, turning insight into influence, and attention into authentic connection.